Albany County Man Pleads Not Guilty To Possession, Child Endangerment

An Albany County man denied charges that he endangered his two young children by keeping marijuana and methamphetamine in the house that he shared with them.

Robert Espy, 33, pleaded not guilty to one count of possession of marijuana as a third or subsequent offense, one count of possession of methamphetamine as a third or subsequent offense and one count of child endangerment. If convicted of the charges, he could face 15 years in prison and $15,000 in fines.

According to court documents, Espy was arrested after an Albany County Sheriff’s deputy searched Espy’s home after a tip about a possible marijuana grow at Espy’s residence. The deputy first searched the home on July 23. The deputy saw a marijuana pipe while knocking on the door of the house and later found two more pipes with suspected marijuana and a marijuana grinder in the kitchen, after Espy had let him into the home.

The deputy learned that Espy’s two children were aged one and four. A second search of the house on July 24 turned up a dispensary container with suspected marijuana in plant form, a suspected meth pipe with residue on it and a plastic zip lock bag containing suspect meth in crystalline form. The deputy later learned that Espy had at least two prior convictions for possession of a controlled substance, court documents state.

Espy later said in an interview that he purchased the meth from a coworker who had asked him if he wanted to buy some and that the marijuana was bought at a Colorado dispensary.

Espy is out on a $10,000 signature bond. The conditions of his bond originally stated that Espy was only to see his children during supervised visits at the Cathedral Home for Children. Espy’s attorney, Linda Devine, informed the court that the Department of Family Services highly recommended that Espy be able to return to his home and to discontinue the supervised visits after showing that he was an attentive father and keeping him out of the home was a disservice to his family.

Prosecutor Kurt Britzius said the state did not object and Albany County District Court Judge Tori Kricken said the bond modification would be granted and Espy could go home and have unsupervised visitation, so long as random urinalysis testing continued.